Antebellum
by Glory For Sleep
Summary: It's strange, how she still remembers. Harley/Soledad


It's strange, how she still remembers.

She remembers when they were kids. They both grew up breathing in the urban air of Pewter and Slateport, running across the grass-covered fields that existed beyond the cities' skyscrapers, theaters, asphalt and cement. When their families had met and formed a friendship, so had they, and she remembers all the days she would spend with him pretending they were famous coordinators, where they would mix reality with fantasy, sometimes adding a vicious salamence to their makeshift stage – a threat to the innocent townspeople that only two brave warriors such as they could defeat.

Not only were they masters, they were heroes.

Together, they could do anything. The sky wasn't the limit, only another starting line. From there, they could shoot to the moon and traverse the stars – _but only_, they would promise to one another, _when they were together_. Their wills were the things that drove them, but their friendship would be the light that would guide the way.

So, as they approached the age of ten, their first steps onto a contest hall's stage were steps they took together. As time passed, their skills improved, as did their amount of ribbons, as did the fame they dreamed about when they were little and they looked up at the night sky, wishing on shooting stars and reaching to the moon.

And, just as they would do on those starry nights, he would take her hand in his after every contest.

"If we're ever apart, Soledad," he would say with a small smile, "just look up at the stars and the moon, and remember that, somewhere, I'm looking up at them, too."

She would return his smile, and she would reply, "Always, Harley. Always."

As they grew older, she knew that every task – every coordinating dream – couldn't be accomplished if they were always at each other's sides. They both needed to follow their own roads and complete their own goals, but even when this was decided they knew that it didn't have to break their childhood promise or those memories. Though their fingers no longer touched when they would walk into a contest hall – though they didn't always see one another on the same stage – they would simply have to look up at the sky, see the ghost of the moon or the light of the first star, and know that they were still together in some form, still dreaming the same dream and still following the same light.

And she knew nothing would have to change.

But, then May and Drew came into the picture, and the innocence was broken. Malice would darken his face, turning the caring glow of his wolf-like eyes into the glare of a monster. She would wonder if anything had happened while they were separated – that, even though they may have stared at the same night sky, those memories of who they used to be had been forgotten beneath the rush of coordinating and the determination to become the best.

Life was a contest, she then realized, and the envy she saw amongst him was nothing but a natural emotion – a part of the "real world," whose rules could so heavily limit the amount of stars they saw in the sky and the brightness of the moon. She would wonder if he felt that way toward her, and sometimes she would be too scared to look at him, afraid of seeing that very same jealousy that he showed to May and Drew.

Thus, she would never gaze into those eyes. Though, she would still smile at him – she would show that she still cared, that she still _remembered_ – even if he didn't. It bothered her; it ripped apart her childhood as if it was a blade, but every time she mentioned it, he would brush her off and promise her that, in the end, she was still his reason for everything – that she was still his light.

After the Kanto Grand Festival was won and it was decided that they would travel through Johto, she noticed how closer he became to May and Drew. The jealousy from before seemed to be forgotten, pushed aside in favor of the family-like bond they had formed out of their rivalry. It sewed up the wound in her childhood memories, but with the harsh trials of Johto, she worried if the past would even be acknowledged anymore.

So, as she now gazes up at the night sky outside of the Olivine City pokemon center, she wonders how, beyond the stress of coordinating and the wars it sometimes brings, she herself can still remember the promise she had made with him after their first contest.

As she contemplates this, he walks up to her side. She looks at him and stares into those eyes, and she recognizes the soft glow in them for the first time in a long time.

"Harley?" she asks, wondering if there's something wrong.

He takes her hand in his, kisses the back of it affectionately, and looks toward the night sky with a smile on his face.

"I'm still here, Soledad."

And she returns his smile, and she follows his eyes back up to the night sky, and she finds herself forgetting her worries, everything about the future – everything, but her hand in his and the sight of the stars and the moon above them both.

It's strange, how she still remembers.

But, at the same time, it isn't. Because so does he.


End file.
